Writing the Earth: 2,000 Years of Geography and Mapping at Bruce Museum
By STAN PARCHIN
January 21, 2010
Writing the Earth: 2,000 Years of Geography and Mapping at the
Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut (January 30 to May 2, 2010) features antique world maps printed between 1511 and 1800 from a private collection. Also on display in the Bantle Lecture Gallery are other works on paper from 1570 that depict the Americas as they were charted during the Age of Exploration.
All maps, whether accurate or not, are a reflection of humankind's awareness of its environment's shape. A record in line, graphic, color and word, these documents describe Earth's history and how it came to be understood. The rare works' projections were influenced at different times by Ptolemaic science, religion, sheer fantasy, contemporary trends and the cartographer's whim.
The early 15th-century humanist translations of Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd Century B.C.) and other pre-Christian treatises from Greek into Latin, the expansion of movable type across Europe and the voyages of discovery helped to change and expand man's knowledge of the globe. Wealthy Renaissance and Baroque patrons were able to obtain volumes devoted to science, travel, exploration, history, geography and cosmology. Publishers of maps and atlases, who rarely left their studies, became editors of knowledge from the far reaches of the Earth. They relied on mariners' imprecise measurements, questionable impressions, naturalists' flawed observations, artists' hasty sketches, rumors, innuendos, hearsay and lies.
The exhibition may be closed periodically for programs that take place in the Bruce Museum's Bantle Lecture Gallery. Telephone (203) 869-0376 or check the museum's Web site for non-viewing times.